Boneshaker

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches, Book 1

The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place.

Maplecroft: The Borden Dispatches, Book 1

The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny.But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place.

Romulus Buckle & the City of the Founders

In a postapocalyptic world of endless snow, Captain Romulus Buckle and the stalwart crew of the Pneumatic Zeppelin must embark on a perilous mission to rescue their kidnapped leader, Balthazar Crankshaft, from the impenetrable City of the Founders. Steaming over a territory once known as Southern California — before it was devastated in the alien war — Buckle navigates his massive airship through skies infested with enemy war zeppelins and ravenous alien beasties in this swashbuckling and high-octane steampunk adventure.

Leviathan

It is the cusp of World War I, and all the European powers are arming up. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ fabricated animals as their weaponry. The Leviathan is a living airship, the most formidable airbeast in the skies of Europe.

Star Wars: Ahsoka

Fans have long wondered what happened to Ahsoka after she left the Jedi Order near the end of the Clone Wars and before she reappeared as the mysterious Rebel operative Fulcrum in Rebels. Finally her story will begin to be told. Following her experiences with the Jedi and the devastation of Order 66, Ahsoka is unsure she can be part of a larger whole ever again. But her desire to fight the evils of the Empire and protect those who need it will lead her right to Bail Organa - and the Rebel Alliance.

The Family Plot

Chuck Dutton built Music City Salvage with patience and expertise, stripping historic properties and reselling their bones. Inventory is running low, so he's thrilled when Augusta Withrow appears in his office offering salvage rights to her entire property. This could be a gold mine, so he assigns his daughter, Dahlia, to personally oversee the project. The crew finds a handful of surprises right away. Firstly, the place is in unexpectedly good shape. And then there's the cemetery, about 30 fallen and overgrown graves dating to the early 1900s.

The Aeronaut's Windlass: The Cinder Spires, Book 1

Since time immemorial the Spires have sheltered humanity, towering for miles over the mist-shrouded surface of the world. Within their halls aristocratic houses have ruled for generations, developing scientific marvels, fostering trade alliances, and building fleets of airships to keep the peace. Captain Grimm commands the merchant ship Predator. Fiercely loyal to Spire Albion, he has taken their side in the cold war with Spire Aurora, disrupting the enemy's shipping lines by attacking their cargo vessels.

In a single moment, everything changes Hundreds of thousands of people suddenly collapse, leaving their friends and loved ones behind, terrified and confused. Moments later, the fallen rise, and the survivors become the hunted. The first three books in the best-selling Empty Bodies post-apocalyptic zombie series!

Tesser: A Dragon Among Us: A Reemergence Novel, Book 1

Imagine for a moment that you are a Dragon. A creature of unimaginable power, unending intelligence and strength, and you've just woken from 10,000 years of slumber. Worse yet, you've awoken underneath a city: Boston, an alien and strange place that defies everything you've ever known. Your last memories are of primordial forests, erupting volcanoes sculpting a developing world, faeries, witches, vampires, krakens, and monsters that feared where you turned your eyes.

The Obelisk Gate: The Broken Earth, Book 2

This is the way the world ends, for the last time. The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night. Essun - once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger - has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever. Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power - and her choices will break the world.

Infernal Devices

When George’s father died, he left his son a watchmaker’s shop - and a whole lot more. But George has little talent for watches and other infernal devices. When someone tries to steal an old device from the premises, George finds himself embroiled in a mystery of time travel, wild music, and sexual intrigue.

Old Man's War

John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First, he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce - and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So, we fight, to defend Earth and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

The Ghost Rebellion: Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, Book 5

The chase is on! After rescuing Queen Victoria from the clutches of the Maestro, Agents Eliza D Braun and Wellington Books are in hot pursuit of Dr. Henry Jekyll. While he continues his experiments on the aristocracy of Europe, he leaves a trail of chaos and despair in his wake. However, when Eliza and Wellington run him to ground in India, they are forced to come face to face with ghosts from the past, and the realities of empire.

The Dark Talent: Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians

Alcatraz Smedry doesn't seem destined for anything but disaster. On his 13th birthday, he receives a bag of sand, which is quickly stolen by the cult of evil Librarians plotting to take over the world. The sand will give the Librarians the edge they need to achieve world domination. Alcatraz must stop them...by infiltrating the local library, armed with nothing but eyeglasses and a talent for klutziness.

Updraft: Bone Universe, Book 1

Welcome to a world of wind and bone, songs and silence, betrayal and courage. Kirit Densira cannot wait to pass her wingtest and begin flying as a trader by her mother's side, being in service to her beloved home tower and exploring the skies beyond. When Kirit inadvertently breaks Tower Law, the city's secretive governing body, the Singers, demand that she become one of them instead. In an attempt to save her family from greater censure, Kirit must give up her dreams to throw herself into the dangerous training at the Spire.

Paper and Fire: The Great Library

With an iron fist, the Great Library controls the knowledge of the world, ruthlessly stamping out all rebellion, forbidding the personal ownership of books in the name of the greater good. Jess Brightwell has survived his introduction to the sinister, seductive world of the Library, but serving in its army is nothing like he envisioned. His life and the lives of those he cares for have been altered forever. His best friend is lost, and Morgan, the girl he loves, is locked away in the Iron Tower and doomed to a life apart.

Deadlands: Ghostwalkers

In Ghostwalkers, a gun-for-hire, literally haunted by his bloody past, comes to the struggling town of Paradise Falls, where he becomes embroiled in a deadly conflict between the besieged community and a diabolically brilliant alchemist who is building terrible new weapons of mass destruction...and an army of the living dead!

Wild Wise Woman says:"GOOD GRIEF (those who read the story will get it)"

Etiquette & Espionage: Finishing School, Book 1

Fourteen-year old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. More interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea - and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy - Mrs. Temminnick is desperate her daughter become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish all right - but it's a different kind of finishing.

The Difference Engine

The Difference Engine is an alternate history novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. It is a prime example of the steampunk sub-genre; It posits a Victorian Britain in which great technological and social change has occurred after entrepreneurial inventor Charles Babbage succeeded in his ambition to build a mechanical computer called Engines. The fierce summer heat and pollution have driven the ruling class out of London and the resulting anarchy allows technology-hating Luddites to challenge the intellectual elite.

Armada: A Novel

It's just another day of high school for Zack Lightman. He's daydreaming through another boring math class, with just one more month to go until graduation and freedom - if he can make it that long without getting suspended again. Then he glances out his classroom window and spots the flying saucer.

Hellbent

Vampire and thief Raylene Pendle doesn’t need more complications in her life. Her Seattle home is already overrun by a band of misfits, including Ian Stott, a blind vampire, and Adrian deJesus, an ex–Navy SEAL/drag queen. But Raylene still can’t resist an old pal’s request: seek out and steal a bizarre set of artifacts. Also on the hunt is a brilliant but certifiably crazy sorceress determined to stomp anyone who gets in her way.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets 16-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

The Anubis Gates

When Brendan Doyle is flown from America to London to give a lecture on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, little does he expect that he will soon be traveling through time and meeting the poet himself. But Brendan could do without being stranded penniless in the teeming, thieving London of 1810.

Publisher's Summary

Nurse Mercy Lynch is elbows deep in bloody laundry at a war hospital in Richmond, Virginia, when Clara Barton comes bearing bad news: Mercy’s husband has died in a POW camp. On top of that, a telegram from the west coast declares that her estranged father is gravely injured, and he wishes to see her. Mercy sets out toward the Mississippi River. Once there, she’ll catch a train over the Rockies and - if the telegram can be believed - be greeted in Washington Territory by the sheriff, who will take her to see her father in Seattle.

Reaching the Mississippi is a harrowing adventure by dirigible and rail through war-torn border states. When Mercy finally arrives in St. Louis, the only Tacoma-bound train is pulled by a terrifying Union-operated steam engine called the Dreadnought. Reluctantly, Mercy buys a ticket and climbs aboard.

What ought to be a quiet trip turns deadly when the train is beset by bushwhackers, then vigorously attacked by a band of Rebel soldiers. The train is moving away from battle lines into the vast, unincorporated West, so Mercy can’t imagine why they’re so interested. Perhaps the mysterious cargo secreted in the second and last train cars has something to do with it?

Mercy is just a frustrated nurse who wants to see her father before he dies. But she’ll have to survive both Union intrigue and Confederate opposition if she wants to make it off the Dreadnought alive.

What the Critics Say

"The battles and intrigue are entertaining, but the real draw is Priest’s latest no-nonsense heroine, who comes equipped with a full measure of sharp judgment and brutal competence as well as a nurse’s kind (but not saintly) heart." (Publishers Weekly)

Dreadnought is the third book from the so called Clockwork Century, preceded by Boneshaker and Clementine (novella). One might think that having already been introduced to the brass gears and levers of this war-torn continent some of the mystery and attraction might already have been spent. Not so. The travel story and adventure of Southern girl and Nurse Mercy Lynch is still very much a good and intriguing tale. We already know what a dirigible is, which instead of taking away some of the wonder of the story gives up space for the more human wonder of this desperate journey across a continent ravaged by a never ending civil war. I always feel somewhat dubious about a series where instead of having one continuing story about one or more people it instead picks up somewhere else completely with a new set of main character. Here though I felt that Mercy Lynch more than made up for the lack of Briar Wilkes, she is just as strong and just as determined, but thankfully in a different way.
No, I tell a lie. We do in fact briefly meet Briar Wilkes, which was an added bonus.
Anyway. I did like the book and if you liked Boneshaker I think you will too

It’s probably important to state right off the bat that I wasn’t a huge fan of Boneshaker. There are several reasons for this, and it should be noted that I read it, and didn’t listen to it, and that may have contributed to my overall feelings. But I like Cherie Priest’s work – in particular, I loved the Eden Moore Southern Gothic Ghost story “Four and Twenty Black Birds” (and if it was available on Audible, I would snatch up that series in its entirety ASAP).

All that to say I came to Dreadnought with some apprehension. So I was thrilled that Priest (and Reading) defied my expectations, and totally rocked me with this book.

There are two keys in play here. First is our protagonist: Nurse Mercy Lynch. I’m not as well read as I’d like to be, but I can’t think of any other SF/F book whose protagonist is a nurse during a war/battlefield. The book opens in a hospital, and closes in another one. It’s set in an alternate history where the American Civil War has lasted over 15 years. While Mercy makes her way across a country fighting against itself, her expertise will be inevitably called upon while everything’s going to hell around her. She’s never far from the wounded and dying soldiers left in the war’s wake. That’s something we don’t see a lot of in genre fiction, and it gives an incredible weight to the violence and action in the story – from her nurse’s perspective, for every great thrilling scene or set piece, Mercy has to deal with the fallout from it all. If bullets fly, her hands will soon be covered in blood because she’s applying pressure to the wounds. I don’t think I’m being hyperbolic at all when I say that Mercy Lynch may be one of my favorite female protagonists.

From a hospital to traveling through a moving battlefield, the first few hours of listening to this are just incredibly intense – really, some of the most intense I’ve heard in a while. That’s not to say Dreadnought isn’t a fun book – it is. But I was just surprised (and pleased) by how much weight the fun packed. This book does not let you look away from the effects of war and violence, and I appreciate it for that.

The second, and perhaps most obvious key, this being an audiobook, is Kate Reading’s incredible reading. I enjoyed it so much, I’m halfway tempted to go back and give Boneshaker another shot. Reading’s reading of Mercy is just absolutely perfect – absolutely nailing the tough, weary nurse’s voice. Her lack of care for social conventions, in particular her profanity around a bunch of men (and sometimes women) who find her to be unladylike, is delightful. And she does solid work with the male characters, specifically Union Captain MacGruder and Texas Ranger Horatio Kornman. Unquestionably, the supporting characters, and their interactions with Mercy, are part of what makes this book so enjoyable.

Yes, there are zombies in this book as well, and I found them far more terrifying in this book. In Boneshaker, they’re usually there – an army of undead rushing after our heroes. In Dreadnought, Priest goes a different route, showing us the horror they’ve wrought well before we actually encounter them, which creates a rising sense of dread throughout the novel.

All in all, this book stunned me in the best way possible, and I hope Priest can continue delivering books in the Clockwork Century of this caliber. Hopefully, Reading will eventually come back to read more of them.

I enjoyed Boneshaker, and I overall liked this book. Mercy Lynch is a tough, intelligent woman. My favorite type of protagonist in a dark and daring adventure.
But in a book about trying to get from point A to point B on the map, you have to get the time vs. distance somewhere near close. At one point Mercy gets on a boat that can travel at 35 naughts (roughly 40 miles per hour) and needs to go 350 miles. This trip takes her about a week. longer than a cruise across the Atlantic! I don't want to give away too much, but a train that can go up to 95 miles per hour takes an awfully long time to go 2000 miles.
Usually I don't pay much attention to such things and tend to gloss over them when I read, but these were so glaring that they knocked me right out of the narrative. Hence, the three stars.
Otherwise, it was good book and an interesting expansion of the world created in Boneshaker. A world I would like to visit again.

This is the third book in this series I have read and I have already decided I will try every book Cherie Priest writes.Very enjoyable and a setting that feels like Deadlands So I can use the adventures for inspiration while GMing.

I bought this book expecting steampunk, but I got so much more. There is action, adventure, alternative history, civil war, thought provoking race conflict, and... zombies. Admittedly, the last two points (thought provoking race conflict and zombies) made me most happy.

On another front, the narration was beautiful. I could listen to Kate Reading all day long. All in all, I recommend this audiobook.

When I read a story or watch a movie, I expect the main character, no matter how much of an expert they are in their field or career, to be thrown into something that's out of their element. This is true whether it's a science fiction adventure or a romantic comedy.

Dreadnought fails to deliver this. Nurse Mercy Lynch, while a strong female lead, never gets thrown into something that she's unprepared for. Instead, everywhere she goes she's just doing her usual job of patching people up. When she gets thrown into the middle of a battle, she patches someone up and moves along. When something else happens, she again patches someone up and moves along. Somewhere past half of the book, she gets to a place where I think she'll finally get thrown into something crazy, but no; she AGAIN patches someone up and moves along.

I got about 3/4 of the way through this audio book before finally giving up. Kate Reading's performance was perfectly fine, but it couldn't help the fundamental failure in storytelling.

If you are a fan of steam engines, strange mechanical devises also powered by steam and a rip roaring adventure, then this book is for you. Don't care much for those things, then this book is still great fun. The story moves ahead like a runaway steam engine. Hang on for a great time.

It's an interesting twist on American history. It does get a little rambling at times and the ending does leave something to be desired. It's all build-up build-up and ending with little closure. But an interesting one maybe two time listen.

Kate Reading seems to have read this whole book as though she was a spoiled child having a bowel movement. There is no other way to describe her voice, or dear god the voices she gives the characters in this book. I would give her reading 0 stars if I could and will avoid her like the plague in the future.

The book by it's self would have gotten 3.5 stars. It's enjoyable, and the world is fun to explore. It's a good follow up to The Boneshaker. But there are times when characters are bit inconsistent, or seem to do things for no other reason then that Priest wants to show us something.

So don't read this book with a critical eye, have fun with it, let the world wash over you and for the love of all that is holy don't let Kate Reading read it to you!